Call it evolution or call it regression, but campus security threats have graduated to a whole new level. In the aftermath of recent incidents including the sexual assault at gunpoint of a woman near York University and the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, where 19 people were injured and one woman was killed by a lone gunman, the idea of “perceived threat” conjures up much more than it might have a decade ago.

That’s why campuses are investing a lot of time and money to revamp their technologies, partnerships and public relations. If maintaining security for thousands of students and faculy is a challenge, it’s also an advantage, says Gary Jeynes, director, public safety, at Humber College in Toronto.

“I’ve got 18,000 pairs of eyes,” says Jeynes, who encourages his team to meet and greet the students, talk to them, and above all, smile. He believes in being accessible and approachable, and that the key to leveraging those numbers is to think about security in a new way: No more surreptitious private-eye approach. No more secrets. “I think the worst mistake a department can make is hide things,” says Jeynes. “The more students know about what we do, the better we are. We’re not shy about this.”

In recent years, Humber’s security department has installed over half a million dollars in CCTV equipment, which Jeynes says has been a great tool for crime prevention and awareness.

“We’ve taken the position that we want to go very public with it,” he says. “So if the bad guy is reading this, I want them to know that, if they’re on the campus they run the risk of being photographed.”

Jeynes’ department also has a strong partnership with the Toronto police, another security tactic that’s by no means a secret. Humber has a Toronto police office on site, complete with logo on the door. The police are on site on a very regular basis, says Jeynes.

“We encourage students to interact with them. Our feedback is that students love this, and employees love to see a police officer walking around the campus. Years ago it might have been a signal that something’s wrong, but now it makes them feel good. It’s an extra level of protection.”

Rod Curran, director of community safety and security at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. says the police often come in for tours on Sundays when they’re less busy. He also makes sure the police know how to get around the campus and have floor plans for the buildings, as well as a copy of the university’s emergency plan. Wilfrid Laurier is the first university in Canada to have a student neighbourhood watch program.

Curran, who is also the president of the Ontario Association of College and Universities Security Administrators and a retired police officer, is impressed with how quickly the police acted in the Dawson shooting in Montreal.

“If this had happened about 10 years ago, the police department would have set up a command post and waited for the tactical team to come in,” he says. “Now the first officers have active shooting training, and they’ll go in and try to take out the shooter. They don’t wait around anymore. At Dawson they went right in.”

Jeynes says campuses that don’t have a good relationship with the police are missing out on a good resource.

“Even invite the police superintendent over for a cup of coffee,” he says, “and just find out what they can do for you and what you can do for them.”

Though pleased with the work of his team and the support they receive from students and faculty, Jeynes says he still has to work daily at promoting security services and getting buy-in. Humber’s Campus Walk program, for example, only gets about two or three calls a day from students needing to be escorted from point A to point B.

“That’s good news and bad news,” says Jeynes. “When you look at Humber’s population, the average in an academic year is about 25,000 people. So the questions is, is everyone feeling okay on the campus, or are we not doing a good job in publicizing the service?”

Jeynes recently put a big push on publicizing the Campus Walk service. A big believer in public relations, Jeynes promotes Humber’s security services by talking to students and faculty, giving handouts to students, and drawing as many as possible to the security department’s comprehensive, interactive website. He further publicizes campus security when he meets the parents each July.

“I put on a classroom session for them,” says Jeynes, “then I take them for a walk. I let them play with the cameras and press the buttons on the phone and camera system. And then I give them all my business card.”

When former RCMP officer Jean Brisebois was hired in 2001 as Concordia University’s director of security, the university had limited security technology. Brisebois conducted an in-depth analysis of the situation and made 102 recommendations. “Naturally a recommendation means money,” says Brisebois, “but I convinced the university to do these within five years.”

It happened even sooner than that, after a student demonstration and subsequent conflicts put the kybosh on a planned visit from then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Within three years, Concordia had installed digital cameras and digital recording, created an operational control centre with professional dispatchers open 24/7, and set up security desks in various areas of the university.

Thousands of dollars in security equipment and a great rapport with people will go far in protecting campuses from security threats, but the work never stops. In an industry that’s all about expecting the unexpected, there’s no substitute for ongoing drills. Brisebois compares his team to an NHL hockey team.

“If they practise every day, I think we should do the same,” he says. “This morning, someone called and said they smelled gas in one of our new buildings. I’m telling you, if we don’t know what to do in a case like that, we might find ourselves with big problems. If you practise a play in hockey, you practise doing some kind of pass to someone who’s close to the net, then one day during the game you’ll do exactly the same thing and the guy will score. It’s exactly the same thing. Exactly.”

Brisebois says there are 160 countries represented in Concordia’s student population.

“We have to be aware of the different cultures, through these students, and we’ve had to inform and train our people to deal with that. When something happens in the Middle East, for example, most of the time there will be some kind of reaction on the part of our students in the following weeks.” Drawing the line The challenge for any campus is to strike a balance between people feeling safe and also feeling free to do their mission to learn, research and work.

But Brisebois has noticed that people demand more security, not less. “They ask for security.” “The university is bigger than 95 per cent of the municipalities in Quebec,” he says. “Also, at our downtown Sir George William campus, we’re facing the same situations as any other citizens in the downtown area. Homeless people, street gangs, theft. We’re part of this community and we’re victims of almost the same things.”

Ӣ Michelle Morra is a Toronto-based freelance writer.